Richard Berner

Biography

As of January 2018, Richard Berner will be Executive-in-Residence at the Center for Global Economy and Business at the NYU Stern School of Business, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economics. He will conduct research, give talks, and help to advance Stern’s financial stability initiatives. He also plans to teach a graduate course in Financial Stability and Risk Management.

Berner served as the first Director of the Office of Financial Research (OFR) from 2013 until 2017. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 established the OFR to support the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the Council’s member organizations, and the public. The OFR’s mission is to promote financial stability by delivering high-quality financial data, standards, and analysis.

Berner was Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury from April 2011 to 2013. His principal responsibilities included advising the Secretary on financial and regulatory issues and standing up the Office of Financial Research.

Berner was a Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Economics and Chief U.S. Economist at Morgan Stanley from 1999 to 2011. He co-directed the Firm’s economics team, and directed forecasting and analysis of the U.S. economy and financial markets.

Berner was Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Mellon Bank, and a member of Mellon's Senior Management Committee (1992-99). Previously, he served as a Principal and Senior Economist for Morgan Stanley, as a Director and Senior Economist for Salomon Brothers (1985-91), as Economist for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company (1982-85), and as Director of the Washington, DC office of Wharton Econometrics (1980-82).

Berner served on the research staff of the Federal Reserve in Washington, where he co-directed the Fed’s model-based forecast and was a member of the team that developed the Fed’s first multicountry model used for international policy analysis (1972-80). He has been an adjunct professor of economics at Carnegie-Mellon University and at George Washington University.

Berner has been a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a member of the Panel of Economic Advisers of the Congressional Budget Office, a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce, a member of the Board of Directors of the Penn Institute for Economic Research, and a member of the Board of Advisors of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC. He served as an associate for the Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group II. He is a Past President and Fellow of the National Association for Business Economics and is the past Chair of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Bond Market Association. He is the winner of forecasting awards from Market News and the National Association for Business Economics, the 2007 recipient of the William Butler Award for Excellence in Business Economics, and has been a member of Time’s Board of Economists.

Dick received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard College in 1968, and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. He researched his dissertation under the supervision of Professor Lawrence Klein, and was funded by SSRC-Ford Foundation grants at both the University of Louvain, Belgium, and at the University of Bologna, Italy from 1971-72. He speaks French and a little Italian.